


Pride

by INeverHadMyInternetPhase



Series: QPR Verse [6]
Category: Phandom/The Fantastic Foursome (YouTube RPF)
Genre: Asexual Character, Asexual Relationship, Fluff, Light Angst, M/M, Pride, Queerplatonic Relationships, introspective Dan
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-24
Updated: 2018-06-24
Packaged: 2019-05-27 20:57:50
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,004
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15033176
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/INeverHadMyInternetPhase/pseuds/INeverHadMyInternetPhase
Summary: It's Pride, and Dan is feeling insecure.





	Pride

**Author's Note:**

> As ever, thank you to my wonderful QPP Charlotte for reading this over for me ^_^

Pride.

Dan stood on the balcony and looked out over Manchester, biting his lip. He had his arms folded over the railing, his eyes downcast to the city that was decked out in rainbows. Bunting hung across the streets, stalls already in place with people setting up floats and food and celebratory gifts. The march would be coming through there later, just below Dan’s feet.

Dan bit his lip and retreated back inside.

Pride. The word itself warred its way within him, battling against his feelings. _It’s weird, it’s different, it isn’t normal and you’re not normal for identifying with it_. Dan grappled against the inner voice telling him those things, telling himself that it was wrong. He was slowly coming to terms with his own queerness – he shuddered internally at the word – but it was difficult to ignore when he was in a relationship with another man.

The people in his dorms hadn’t had a problem with it, apart from one guy who wouldn’t stop staring at Dan when Dan let it slip in the crowd that he had Phil, and then he’d got up and quietly left in the middle of watching a film.

Dan had never seen him again.

But still, Dan was coming to terms with it. He could hold hands with Phil in the street now and fight down the shot of terror that accompanied it, could talk to his mum about how Phil and he had to get rid of a wasp from their shared bedroom and not listen to the part of him that said she’d be disappointed. The people around him had made it clear that he was still Dan, that it didn’t matter to them who he was in a relationship with as long as he was happy.

And Dan was happy – blindingly, deliriously happy – but he couldn’t help but wonder whether people’s opinions would change if they knew exactly what his relationship with Phil entailed.

QPR. He’d finally found a word for it that he was happy with, after months and months of internet searches and googling and reading other people’s experiences to know that he wasn’t alone. He knew now that he wasn’t alone, that there was a _word_ for what he and Phil were, but he also knew that he couldn’t drop into casual conversation that he had a queerplatonic partner and expect other people to understand.

_That’s because it’s weird and wrong_ , that small voice inside Dan whispered.

He did his best not to listen to it.

Dan turned around and went to curl up on his beanbag, the one that Phil laughed at and said looked like the most uncomfortable thing ever. Dan liked it, though. He liked to curl his long limbs up and feel small for a little while, like he didn’t have the weight of worry and fear and _life_ hanging down around him. He could lose himself in a game for a while, maybe Skyrim, maybe something else – something fantasy, where he wouldn’t have to think about today and all it meant.

Pride.

Manchester Pride was a big event. They got pop singers and famous dancers and people who all came out to celebrate, big and bold and adventurous and everything Dan felt like he couldn’t be.

Would he even be welcome there?

Dan bit his lip, curling up further and hearing the balls inside the beanbag shifting against him. A hard knot of worry lay curled in his stomach, had been there since he’d woken up. Thankfully he’d been able to roll over and press himself up against Phil’s side, wind his way under Phil’s arm and let him cuddle it away for a while. But then Phil had had to go to the shops because they’d both forgotten to buy milk yesterday and Phil needed his coffee before he could properly start his day.

Dan was left alone for a little while, and it was enough time for the doubt to creep in.

Pride. Part of Dan wanted to race out there and join them, leave this enormous tower block of a flat building and head out onto the streets. To celebrate with the others like him. To finally reach out and be _proud_ of who he was, to feel deep within him that he was _right_ , that he belonged. Part of Dan wanted to rush out there and never look back.

He frowned and pushed that part down, tucking it away somewhere deep behind his heart where he wouldn’t need to think about it for a while.

Besides, even if he did – even if he did go out there and join the others in celebration, they’d still be celebrating something he _wasn’t_. And the thought of all the sexual humour, the over-the-top costumes, made something deep within him gag. He didn’t like the thought of sex, or anything remotely to do with it, and so much of Pride was so highly sexualised that he knew he’d never feel comfortable there.

Maybe they weren’t really his people. He was asexual, he knew that now, had found the word online and felt his chest loosen up. There were others like him, other people who didn’t quite fit anywhere. He’d seen the talk online that aces didn’t belong in the queer community, didn’t have a right to that word. It didn’t help the warring within Dan’s heart.

Maybe he didn’t fit anywhere. Maybe he was too weird.

The front door slammed shut somewhere behind Dan, making him jump. And shortly after he could hear Phil cheerily talking as he toed his shoes off in the corridor and wandered down into the lounge where Dan was still curled up on the bean bag.

“It’s busy out today, you’ll never guess who I saw in the shop,” Phil said, heading straight for the kitchen to put the milk in the fridge.

“Who?” Dan asked, hitting pause on his game. When Phil came home he got all of Dan’s attention, seeing as Dan was still getting used to the fact that they _lived together now_. That whenever he wanted Phil, he could usually just turn around and Phil would be there, and even if he wasn’t, they’d both be going to the same home at the end of each and every day.

It was a comfort.

“This guy dressed in a gimp suit,” Phil laughed. “Bright pink. Reminded me of your old video, which is still really weird, by the way.”

Dan squirmed a bit in his seat. “You should have stopped me.”

“It wasn’t up to me what went on your channel,” Phil shrugged, coming over to the lounge with the smirky smile on his face that Dan loved. “You’re responsible for all the atrocities. _Hi, my name is—_ ”

“Don’t you even,” Dan threatened, wriggling around on the bean bag to give Phil the full effect of his worst death glare.

Phil, much to Dan’s chagrin, simply laughed in his face. “Sorry. Not helping you with that one.”

“It’ll be for Pride, anyway,” Dan huffed, folding his arms and turning his face away. “Nothing to do with me.”

“Oh.” There was quiet for a moment, in which Dan refused to look at Phil and Phil sat in confused silence. Dan bit his lip, squirming internally. He didn’t need to let Phil in on his worries anymore, much as he knew Phil would listen. But a large part of Dan still believed that he didn’t deserve Phil’s attention, especially not on matters like this.

An even bigger part of Dan was afraid that Phil would confirm his fears, or simply wouldn’t understand him at all.

“Oh,” Phil said again, quieter, and then a hand was touching Dan’s elbow. “Did you want to go?”

Dan froze.

Out of everything, he hadn’t expected those words to come out of Phil’s mouth. The quiet parts of Dan fighting each other inside him got slightly louder, the raucous invading.

He swallowed it down and asked, “Really?”

Phil nodded, and when Dan braved looking over at him, he was giving Dan a long, gentle look. One of the ones that stopped Dan’s heart, that made him feel like everything was going to be ok despite the constant battles inside his head.

“If you want to,” Phil said, his voice going soft in the way that he only reserved for Dan. “We don’t have to, I just thought I’d let you know the option is there.”

Dan bit his lip, glancing away again. “Do you think we’d even be allowed?”

At that, Phil gave a short laugh. “It isn’t a contest, Dan. People go who feel comfortable going, who want to celebrate. If you want to do that, then we can go.”

Did Dan want to do that? He wasn’t even sure himself. Part of him did – part of him wanted to be loudly happy, to show off the miracle of a relationship he’d found with Phil, the person who made him feel like everything was _right_ even if the inside of his head felt wrong. Dan wanted to show that off, to show the world how lucky he was, how Phil was _his_ and nobody else’s.

“What about the people on YouTube?” Dan asked, his voice turning a little bitter without him meaning it to. “If someone sees you know they’re going to assume we’re gay.”

“Well, we’re not straight,” Phil said with a small smile, a slight twinkle in his eye that made Dan want to melt.

“I _know_ , it’s just,” Dan sighed, flopping backwards in the beanbag, Phil’s hand falling off his shoulder. Dan missed the contact, reached out to grab his hand himself. “We’re not… like _that_ , either.”

People were going to assume they were having sex. That they were a normal couple. _But we’re not,_ Dan’s mind told him, _We’re not normal._

His mouth tasted a little sour.

“Dan.” Phil shuffled closer, sliding along the floor until he could see Dan’s face. He intertwined their fingers. “We don’t have to go, or we can go, and the only people that matters to is us.”

“But what if other people tell us we can’t be there?” Dan mumbled, wriggling. “We’re just – it feels like we’re so _invisible_ , and part of me really wants to go out there and prove that we can exist – but then the other part of me…”

Dan cut himself off before he could say _is afraid. The other part of me is petrified._

There was silence for a few moments, and then Phil shuffled closer still, until he could get an arm around Dan and turn to face the television with him. He handed Dan his games console. “Then we’ll stay here. We have nothing to prove to anyone, Dan, not unless we want to.”

Dan bit his lip, those words humming in his brain. The war inside him calmed down slightly. _Not unless we want to._ He didn’t have to have anything to prove. Maybe he and Phil couldn’t just simply… be.

For now, that was enough.

Dan scooped up his games controller and handed Phil the second one, switching games. “Alright. I’m going to beat your arse at Mario Kart.”

Phil groaned loudly, but he still took the other controller. It was moments like that when Dan realised just how much he loved Phil.

\---

Later that evening, photos from Manchester Pride came out, and Dan, being the slight masochist that he was, looked them up. And among the shots of ecstatic people with rainbows painted on their faces, he found a pleasant surprise.

A purple flag. People wearing purple shirts, purple face paint, purple hair dye. The word _Asexuality_ printed out on signs for everyone to see.

Visible.

Dan bit his lip, nudged Phil in bed next to him.

Phil, half-asleep, blinked blearily at the screen. “’M’not wearing my glasses.”

“It’s ok,” Dan murmured, his heart full. “It’ll keep ‘til morning.”

He saved the tab in his bookmarks before going back to his browsing, the war within him calmed, at least for a little while.

**Author's Note:**

> Come find me on tumblr @ineverhadmyinternetphase


End file.
